The Pre-Military Academies Revolution and the Creation of a New Security Epistemic Community – the Militarization of Judea and Samaria
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Israel Affairs ISSN: 1353-7121 (Print) 1743-9086 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fisa20 Settling the Military: the pre-military academies revolution and the creation of a new security epistemic community – The Militarization of Judea and Samaria Udi Lebel To cite this article: Udi Lebel (2015) Settling the Military: the pre-military academies revolution and the creation of a new security epistemic community – The Militarization of Judea and Samaria, Israel Affairs, 21:3, 361-390, DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2015.1036556 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2015.1036556 Published online: 10 Jun 2015. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 188 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fisa20 Download by: [Tel Aviv University] Date: 27 June 2017, At: 05:01 Israel Affairs, 2015 Vol. 21, No. 3, 361–390, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2015.1036556 Settling the Military: the pre-military academies revolution and the creation of a new security epistemic community – The Militarization of Judea and Samaria Udi Lebel* Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ariel University, Samaria and Jordan Rift, R&D Centre, Ariel, Israel The article describes the establishment of the pre-military academies in Judea and Samaria as cultural agents preceding the militaristic habitus of these areas. It follows the development of the security epistemic community in these areas which formed a new identity of the settlers. The increase of religious-Zionist youth in combat units and officer courses in the IDF due to these academies altered the positioning of the settlers and all religious Zionists in Israeli society vis-a`-vis non-religious elites, the ultra-orthodox, and religious-Zionist groups who did not join the pre-military academy revolution. Judea and Samaria became a ‘security zone’ identified with sacrifice, heroism, giving, a pedagogical partnership with the army, reflected in higher percentages of activities in educational, religious, and cultural institutions encouraging meaningful army service. Keywords: epistemic community; military; Samaria; pre-military college; religion Introduction and the objectives of this article Since the beginning of the millennium, a greater percentage of Israeli religious Zionists serve in combat units of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), as well as becoming middle and high ranking officers in these units. For years the military arena and ethos of Israel had been identified with the left-wing socialist agricultural movements: secular movements which realized the option of the ‘new Jew’ who turned his back on the religious diaspora, especially marking the Torah world and army life as dichotomous spheres. This article focuses upon the dynamics initiated by the establishment of pre-military academies – institutions that created an option for religious-Zionist youth to relate to the military and Torah worlds in a hybrid manner, leading to an unprecedented participation of religious nationalists in Israeli military activities. In the book New Elites in Israel published in 2007, in the chapter ‘The New Army Elite’, under the sub-title ‘The New Stockpile of IDF Officers’, Yoram Peri, former editor of the Israeli Labour Movement’s Davar newspaper, wrote: *Email: [email protected] q 2015 Taylor & Francis 362 U. Lebel The most prominent group is the national-religious camp. In the past the number of religious Jews ... in the high ranks of the IDF had been minimal ... [Nowadays], a quarter of squad officers and unit leaders are religious ... This phenomenon received a boost by the establishment of pre-military academies which granted religious legitimacy to serving in the army as a regular soldier within regular army units, and not as a soldier associated with the hesder yeshiva movement which had separate units within the army.1 As will be demonstrated, this not only affected the army’s image, but also affected national-religious society in general and the settlers’ social order in particular, especially concerning the positioning of these sectors within Israeli society: in relationship to the general secular public; in relationship to the ultra- Orthodox (Haredi) sector; and in relationship to the national-religious bourgeois who did not join this new military track – thereby effecting new divisions within the national-religious camp. This new positioning has political, cultural, and even erotic ramifications. This trend of accelerated integration of religious soldiers into the army has recently attracted scholarly as well as polemic attention, even being referred to as regionalization.2 The essential discussion focuses upon cultural negotiations concerning the character of the army, especially concerning feminist issues (some religious-Zionist rabbis demand that religious soldiers do not serve alongside female soldiers in the IDF); ramifications concerning the ethics and warfare values of the IDF; and the possible dilemma confronting religious soldiers should they be ordered to evacuate settlements. This article, as mentioned, will focus upon one facet of this development, demonstrating the internal communal dynamics within religious-national society, with special attention to the implications of these pre-military academies for Judea and Samaria – the West Bank. In my opinion, the discussion of the militarization of the religious sector in Israel has ignored the spatial element, for, as will be demonstrated, the pre-military academies are also a novel development concerning the status of the ‘territories’ east of the Green Line, in the eyes of national-religious soldiers as well as concerning the general public’s views of the settlements and settlers. The generation of the founders of the Gush Emunim movement framed the settlement movement as the continuation of the pioneer settlers of the kibbutzim (collective settlements) and moshavim (cooperative settlements), while granting these territories religious meaning, thereby viewing themselves as returning the Jewish people to their roots. Since the pre-military academy revolution took place in Samaria (northern West Bank), as will be demonstrated, the present generation of fighters owe their new military identity to this area. The location of many of these academies in Judea and Samaria, which attracted religious youth from their parents’ homes for an experience of adolescence and autonomy, became the location where this psycho-cultural transformation takes place – a metamorphosis from someone raised on values of intellectual Talmud study to one whose physical and spiritual masculinity and maturity are formed in preparation for combat army service. Similar to the Israel Affairs 363 college experience of American youth, or the metropolis for the homosexual, it will become clear that the areas of Judea and Samaria are the places where religious-Zionist fighters can change into what they are, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of the general Israeli public: combat soldiers and officers. These areas facilitate the metamorphosis that grants it legitimacy. The central objectives of this article are to note the following developments: (1) The pre-military academies are the institutional launch pads propelling many boys from the national-religious sector to meaningful positions in the IDF, in addition to their becoming spatial militaristic habitus initiators. With the establishment of the first pre-military academy in the Eli settlement in Samaria and its becoming a model for other such institutions, the areas of Judea and Samaria have become ‘security areas’ where its youth are channelled to significant military service, resulting in the psycho-cultural singularity of this area. The spatial habitus of this area is identified with cultural militarism. This then trickles to other institutions there – the Hesder yeshivot, religious and secular high schools, youth movements, etc. (2) This trend has significant ramifications for the identity of religious- Zionist children born since the 1980s, for Judea and Samaria are viewed as a place facilitating the psycho-cultural transformation of the youth of the religious-Zionist sector: channelling religious youth from being yeshiva students to becoming combat soldiers. Thus, this region is inseparable from their social identity and positions. (3) As a result of this development, a new security epistemic community has been formed in Judea and Samaria. During their military service, the officers and soldiers return there, whether to live there or to seek advice from their mentors in the academies or to share their experiences with their friends. This is a community with symbols, heroes, intellectuals, and mentors. (4) Concerning this sector, there has been a rejuvenation of its ethos and social positioning: not only the tendency to position this sector with the kibbutz movement by presenting the settlements as a continuation of this movement, thereby acquiring the sympathy of secular Israelis, and not only their positioning in the Jewish ethos as settlers within the biblical land of Israel and thus acquiring the sympathy of religious Israelis, but as a new constructive model which differentiates the settlers from other segments of religious Zionists who continue to attend the Hesder Yeshivot. Primarily, the pre-military academy is an original institution created in the settlements of Samaria and became a model for imitation within